After Spudulike closed in 2024, the reign of the jacket potato seemed over in the UK. But now the favourite is back, piled with new toppings, sold by new companies and promoted all over social media by potato influencers

They were once a lunch option that inspired little excitement – but the jacket potato’s time has finally come. After decades in epicurean exile, the humble spud has made a roaring comeback in the UK and piqued the interest of foodies across the world. A-listers, tourists and trend-hopping teenagers are queueing for hours to get their hands on them. For Jacob Nelson, who sells loaded spuds that have gone super-viral on social media, this was all part of the plan. “We thought: how can we make the jacket potato sexy again?” he says.

The 30-year-old, who runs SpudBros with his brother Harley and dad Tony, was among the first crop of social-media savvy spud vendors to give the jacket potato a much-needed makeover. After a slow start in lockdown, the brothers spoke to some youngsters in Preston Flag Market, where they had set up shop, to find out why they were shunning spuds. “It was an absolute ghost town,” says Harley. “We spoke to one student walking past us. He said to get on social media.” The pair listened, filming their interactions with customers while showing off their mouthwatering loaded spuds, and subsequently went stratospheric on TikTok in 2023.

This ancient Scottish tavern was a raucous, cross-generational hangout where everyone – young and old, locals and tourists – sang themselves hoarse to Fairytale of New York

This is said to be one of Scotland’s most haunted pubs, but for me it’s haunted with happy memories, the ghosts of hazy nights out, the spectre of my younger self, and of course the cantankerous clergyman who stalks its walls from beyond the grave.

When Stuart Green’s wife, an environmental rights lawyer, was shot dead in a car in front of her children in the Philippines, he found books on grief little help. So he wrote his own

The dreaded school run is a daily battle for most parents. Even once out of the door and at the school gates, feigned smiles and small talk with other haggard parents can be a mass performance. For Stuart Green, who spent years wrestling his young twins out of car seats and into coats, all the while keeping an eye on his eldest daughter, it was the small talk he dreaded.

“Is Mummy at work?” someone might ask. Green’s response would be a half truth: “I’m a single parent.” The full story could not be explained in a 15-second conversation on the street.

Manual for building design aims to encourage low-carbon construction as alternative to steel and concrete

An airport made of bamboo? A tower reaching 20 metres high? For many years, bamboo has been mostly known as the favourite food of giant pandas, but a group of engineers say it’s time we took it seriously as a building material, too.

This week the Institution of Structural Engineers called for architects to be “bamboo-ready” as they published a manual for designing permanent buildings made of the material, in an effort to encourage low-carbon construction and position bamboo as a proper alternative to steel and concrete.

She’s got the smarts, the FBI training and the CBeebies wardrobe. Will the bookies’ favourite become the first female Traitor to win a UK series?

Even a stopped castle clock is right twice a day. During last Friday’s jack-in-the-box mission on The Traitors, the remaining contestants were asked which of their fellow players would make the best Traitor. In a rare moment of insight, Weymouth gardener James Baker – he of the clumsy shield-stealing – said: “Rachel. She has those FBI skills and is just so smooth.”

He doesn’t know the half of it. Cut to Rachel saying through gritted teeth: “Shut up, James. Just shush.” She might have been momentarily rattled but the canny operator was soon making a mental note of everyone’s answers to use against them later. Translation: James’s days could be numbered.

Tory leader tries to score points by siding with out-of-control president hellbent on destroying Nato and Europe

It had been a relatively quiet night. Apart from Donald Trump giving a long, rambling press conference in which he offered only a few mild insults to his supposed allies and posting mockups of Canada and Greenland covered in the Stars and Stripes. Apart from that. But that barely raises an eyebrow these days.

Still, any respite – even 12 hours – is to be welcomed. Gives Keir Starmer a moment to catch his breath. A morning when the news cycle looks vaguely like it did the night before. Even if that is situation normal: all fucked up. A chance to think. Rather than be bounced into yet another psychotic parallel universe. Shame then that Kemi Badenoch didn’t also use the time to do the same. Thinking has never appeared to be her strong point.

Nato chief Mark Rutte says there is ‘a lot of work to be done’, as some Danish MPs voice concern at Greenland apparently being sidelined in US president’s talks

Donald Trump’s announcement of a “framework of a future deal” that would settle the issue of Greenland after weeks of escalating threats has been met with profound scepticism from people in the Arctic territory, even as financial markets rebounded and European leaders welcomed a reprieve from further tariffs.

Just hours after the president used his speech at the World Economic Forum to insist he wanted Greenland, “including right, title and ownership,” but backed away from his more bellicose threats of military intervention – Trump took to social media to announce “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” and withdrew the threat of tariffs against eight European countries. He later called it “a concept of a deal” when he spoke to business network CNBC soon after Wall Street closed.

Trial of Adrian Gonzales in Corpus Christi was the first over the hesitant law enforcement response to the 2022 attack

A former Uvalde schools police officer was acquitted Wednesday of charges that he failed in his duties to confront the gunman at Robb Elementary during the critical first minutes of one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.

Jurors deliberated for more than seven hours before finding Adrian Gonzales, 52, not guilty in the first trial over the hesitant law enforcement response to the 2022 attack, in which a teenage gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers. Had he been convicted, he faced up two years in prison on more than two dozen charges of child abandonment and endangerment.

IFG says proposed plans, which will slash the number of jury trials, will produce ‘marginal gains’ of less than 2% time saved

David Lammy’s plans to introduce judge-only criminal trials in England and Wales will save less than 2% of time in crown courts, the Institute for Government (IFG) has said.

In a report that casts doubt on the ability of the changes, which will slash the number of jury trials to achieve their goal of wiping out the courts’ backlog, the thinktank described the gains from judge-only trials as “marginal”.

Record-breaking rains spark landslide at Mount Maunganui campsite, with helicopter teams retrieving families from rooftops and local states of emergency declared

Emergency services in New Zealand are searching for several people, including a child, believed missing after a landslide hit a campsite during storms that have caused widespread damage across the North Island.

Emergency minister Mark Mitchell told RNZ that parts of the east coast looked like “a war zone”, with helicopters deployed to rescue families sheltering on rooftops from flooding, and local states of emergency declared in five regions across Northland and the East Cape due to days of record-breaking torrential rain.